review

Here’s what I completed in November. Links below take you to my reviews on Goodreads.com.

• American Gods, Neil Gaiman
• Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories, Steven Millhauser
• Amnesia Moon, Jonathan Lethem

In which I review “Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services,” a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

There are some other great cites in this issue as well . . . including things I have saved to read someday. Mayhap I shall just read the cite instead.

The October issue of Current Cites is out, featuring moi as one of the new reviewers. Take a look at my review of a JASIS&T article from September (”Personal Communication Technologies as an Extension of the Self: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of People’s Associations with Technology and Their Symbolic Proximity with Others”) and save yourself from trying to read & comprehend the whole thing.

Here’s what I completed in October. Links below take you to my reviews on Goodreads.com.

• Dark at the Roots: A Memoir, Sarah Thyre
• Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay
• The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes, Tess Uriza Holthe
• The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye, Jonathan Lethem

Here’s what I completed in September. Links below take you to my reviews on Goodreads.com.

• The Children of Húrin, J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel, Lisa See
• Him Her Him Again The End of Him, Patricia Marx
• Who’s Killing the Great Writers of America?, Robert Kaplow
• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach
• Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts! Lacy Crochet: Lacy Crochet, Shufu-To-Seikatsu Sha
• As She Climbed Across the Table, Jonathan Lethem
• Sarah Canary, Karen Joy Fowler
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote

The other night, I noticed a little link on my Flickr homepage — did I want to upgrade to the new interface? Why sure. I have to say, I like it. Given that there hadn’t been any big announcements that this was coming (a ala the new Facebook) I figured it probably wasn’t going to be that much of a change. But in some important ways, it is.

Now, the first thing I see when I hit my Flickr homepage is recent activity. That’s both on my photos (who’s commented, favorited them, tagged them, added a note, etc.) and on photos on which I have commented — that means I can more easily follow the developing conversation around a video that a friend took of new dining spaces at my library school. This information was available previously, but this change really puts the social aspect front and center. Of course, there are those of us who were already using it as a social tool to a certain extent, but I think this will make it more obvious to other folks. (The social aspect of Flickr is something that seems to puzzle people when I am explaining what it is and why it’s so much better than whatever online service is provided by your camera manufacturer.)

I can also see a small line graph of daily views of all my photos, and when I click through on that I get a more detailed breakdown of which photos have been viewed recently. Again, this was available before (I believe) but it wasn’t front and center. Now I know that a photo I took of a Loyola building in January was viewed 7 times yesterday. (Welcome, freshmen.) And I also know that this photo of a ballband dishcloth has been viewed more than 14,000 times since I uploaded it on 11/18/06. (I blame Ravelry, and also the incredible popularity of this pattern among a certain type of knitter.)

When I scroll down on my homepage, I can still see the 8 most recent uploads from my contacts (I believe previously on the homepage you only saw 6; that or the thumbnails were smaller). And below that, the four most recent photos from one of my groups are displayed. (Not sure how the group is picked - randomly? Last one I added to?)

There’s still a small box highlighting a recent post on the Flickr blog, and there’s another little box with a rotating announcement. The really neat thing is that I can manually refresh that little box and cycle through a handful of announcements and helpful info. I know this is not really an unusual feature, but I like the little icon they’ve made to indicate that you can do this. (In nerdspeak — I am fond of this design pattern.)

Anyway, that’s that. Flickr users should keep an eye out for that little link (not sure if they are slowly rolling it out or if it’s available for everyone). Oh, I should mention that there’s an entertaining little interlude while your homepage rearranges itself, too. I thought it really captured Flickr’s friendly/funny vibe.

Here’s what I completed in August (better late than never, right?). Links below take you to my reviews on Goodreads.com.

• Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold, Terry Brooks
• Evening Is the Whole Day: A Novel, Preeta Samarasan
• Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin

One of the biggest changes for me in moving from a PC to a Mac (other than the absurd amount of affection I now feel for my laptop) is the change in how I’m doing my budgeting. Since I got my Gateway in December 2002, I’ve been using Microsoft Money. It came pre-installed, and I was pretty happy with it. It’s easy to import data from my credit card companies, and there’s a lot of ways to manipulate the data and see what’s happening with your spending. But, no more Money for me.

I didn’t really want to buy a new piece of software — something about buying software for budgeting seems incongruous. And I didn’t want to set myself up on Mint.com. While I pay all my bills online and use the online access associated with all of my accounts, something about having everything aggregated into a single place online gives me pause. This is despite the fact that Mint doesn’t store your account numbers or logon credentials. Irrational, I know. So that left me with the spreadsheet option. But I knew I would drive myself batty making absurdly complicated and idiosyncratic spreadsheets. (I have them now, and am using them in addition to Money. It is absurdly complicated and I frequently forget what I’ve already done.)

So, I started searching around to see if I could find anything useful for spreadsheet-based personal budgeting. I went straight to Consumerist and took a look at the financial management sites & blogs they were pointing to. That very quickly got me to The Simple Dollar. I spent some time digging around in the archives and hit upon Pear Budget. They’re doing an online version which I assume is similar to Mint, but they started out as a spreadsheet. An amazing, wonderful spreadsheet that exploits what seems to be every nook and cranny of Calc (aka Excel). I spent a few hours getting started yesterday, slowly but surely transcribing the data from this year into Pear Budget. So far, it’s fantastic. Here’s a description of what you get, and some thoughts: Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s what I completed in July. Links below take you to my reviews on Goodreads.com.

• The Principles of Uncertainty, Maira Kalman
• Unsuitable for Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers, Jane Robinson
• Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping, Paco Underhill
• McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers, Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey

Is that really all? Huh. I suppose I did spend a week or so ignoring the stack I got out of the library after vacation.

I just wanted to plug a great movie I saw recently that I think is one of those indie films that gets lost in the shuffle for most of us. I forget why it came up, but at some point The Dead Girl was recommended to me by Netflix, so I added it to my queue. The Dead Girl is a quiet little film with some great talent: Mary Steenburgen, Toni Collete, Josh Brolin and plenty of others. The gist of it is that someone finds the body of a dead stranger, and we see how this discovery affects the lives of several people. In that sense it’s a little like “Crash,” but felt less hectic to me. I’m no big critic when it comes to movies, but I thought the acting was great and the story was just wonderful. Go rent it, or queue it, or check it out — however you get your film fix.